The present invention relates generally to data processing systems, and more specifically to a technique for organizing content items.
In certain situations, it may be desirable to filter, order by relevance, and/or cache content items for delivery to a user. As an illustrative example, consider the world wide network of computers commonly known as the Internet. A hypertext information and communication system known as the World Wide Web (“WWW”) operates on the Internet, according to a client-server model using HyperText Transfer Protocol (“HTTP”), to make content on a web site on the WWW accessible to users. The accessible content on the web site may be of many different types including text, graphics, images, sound, and video.
In a given situation, a web developer/administrator may wish to organize some of the content items available on a web site. This organization may involve, for example, filtering some of the content items for display. In another situation, the web developer/administrator may wish to organize the content items to reflect a particular user's preferences. In yet another situation, the web developer/administrator may wish to cache frequently accessed content items. Known techniques for organizing content items in this manner typically require complex database queries, possibly involving multiple table joins in each case. As will be appreciated, such complex database queries may be costly in terms of data processing resources consumed, possibly limiting the flexibility of a web developer/administrator in organizing the content items as desired. Thus, a more efficient technique for organizing content items is needed.